[procrastitron]

Actually, the page loading is pretty good. The important thing about that is you show a loading icon, so I know to wait a bit.

Some of the slowness seems to be the initial loading, because the responsiveness improves after the first visit. Since the background images seem to mostly be eye-candy, you might want to think about removing them. They also make your first visit to the site more confusing (in my opinion).

I also see some slowness in the hover and zooming, and that seems to stick around so I don't think it is a loading issue. You might want to reconsider the amount of animation that is done by the hovering; I already know where my mouse is, and some of the actions seem to simply highlight that.

I hope this helps, and thanks for putting your stuff up for us to play with.