The slow loading points toward a hard drive problem. Your furmark test is right in place with the GTX 980 averages, so it isn't a problem with graphics. Your display is irrelevant, so the only problems left would be RAM, CPU and HDD. A CPU problem generally comes with a lot of failures, and you don't seem to be having any. Seeing as how you have 18gb DDR4, it seems like you mixed and matched different sizes of RAM sticks, which isn't recommended, but unless they give you errors and crashing, wouldn't cause your problem.
The only thing left is the HDD. You mentioned that it is a '500 ssd hard drive'. Does this mean that it is an SSD or a hybrid SSD/HDD?. How full is it? When drives get full, their performance decreases massively and could cause the computer to get stuck loading. Get a program such as CrystalDiskMark to measure your read/write speeds and post them. And also, try to find out exactly what disk you have and post it. With this information we can probably figure out what exactly is going on.