Load time into Express Scribe

[hosta2]

Downloading dictation from public FTP server took less than a minute for 44mb file. But when I loaded into ES, it took 1.5 hours! And, the file on ES took almost 1gig of memory! Is this normal? What should load time be for a file that size? I have an old 350MHz machine, running Win98. The ES software works fine once loaded but the wait time is tying up my machine!

Is it just my slow machine processor speed?

Assuming it is the machine age/speed, I am looking at a new machine. Does ES have any difficulty running with dual processors? Apparently some other programs don't like dual processors according the shop building my new computer. Just want to be sure before I find out the hard way.