I'm hoping this is just due to what we've seen not being the final version, even if the tag was inactive, crossbows in EA had the loading property. Having crossbows and bows play by the same rules doesn't make sense when one is clearly superior...
I wouldn't get my hopes up. Larian doesn't do balancing if it all conceivably interfers with their perception of fun. Besides, they have a track-record of making crossbows clearly superior to bows (DOS2) albeit not quite as blatantly as what seems to be the case here where shortbows and longbows are made completely redundant.
