There's nothing untoward going on here. "Load" refers to fees that a fund charges (to get in or get out). They have nothing to do with the fees brokerages charge for account maintenance (on a monthly basis for example), or transaction fees they charge for buying or selling. Fidelity (and Schwab, etc.) offer a vast array of funds with no transaction fee, and a vast array of those have no load. If you choose a fund that has a transaction fee, then you're making your own choice to do so - in my experience, there has always been a reasonably comparable fund available with no transaction fee, in my experience.