D8 - Entity Load Cache
First of all. Are ... and ... the same?


Assuming your entity type class doesn't override Entity::load to do something different, yes they are the same. If you look at that method you can see it uses exactly the same op:

public static function load($id) {
  $entity_type_repository = \Drupal::service('entity_type.repository');
  $entity_type_manager = \Drupal::entityTypeManager();
  $storage = $entity_type_manager
    -&gt;getStorage($entity_type_repository
    -&gt;getEntityTypeFromClass(get_called_class()));
  return $storage
    -&gt;load($id);
}


So Entity::load is simply a shortcut to loading the entity via the manager service.


  When I talk directly to the class's load function also?


They're identical operations, so yes, they share the same caching.