With mutual funds, it is very easy to be distracted by high investment returns and slick marketing. The mutual fund industry spends millions of dollars on glossy magazine and television ads. Where do they get money to splurge on ads? Fees paid by their investors of course! Over time, these expenses really bite into returns. That’s why many individual investors are looking for a mutual fund no load situation.
In mutual fund investing, “load” typically means “front-end load”. Usually the fund company takes 2.5% or 5% right when you deposit your money. This is without them doing any work! Usually this cash is used as compensation to the broker that sold them to the investor.
The conflicts of interest are obvious. What you’ll find that many funds with high load aren’t that great. But they are huge with billions of dollars invested because “financial advisers” keep pouring money into them for the gravy. Regulators are trying to make mutual fund investing fair for the average investor but the financial services industry is extremely powerful.
That leaves it to the individual to decide what is best for him or her.
Be sure to do lots of online research before putting money into the fund. Check out many websites and free reports and such. This can take a decent amount of time because there is lots of information to digest. But this will all pay off in the end. Even if after all your work your investment returns are only a few percentage points higher, this amount of money can add up to a tidy sum over time. Investing is like building a snowball. BTW I’m reading Warren Buffets biography right now (”The Snowball” and its an amazing piece of writing. 
You should also probably consider index funds. I guess I am biased in this regard. If you look at the entire history of actively managed mutual funds, very few outperform their benchmarks in the long run. This is why I have much of investment fund put into what are known as index funds. They don’t try to beat the market. They merely try to match it. There’s no overcompensated financial wizard running the fund. They keep costs low. And the vast majority have no load.