Yes, it's completely normal due to the amount of addtional content that needs to load.
Found it!.....
Stock 1.4b:
Air Units = 13
Sea Units = 49
U-Boats+Subs = 8
SCR Campaign = 19249 lines
RND Campaign = 402082 lines
LND Campaign = 11968 lines
Total = 433299
GWX 2.0: (not 2.1)
Air Units = 40
Sea Units = 182
U-Boats+Subs = 24
SCR Campaign = 486859 lines
RND Campaign = 629050 lines
LND Campaign = 53925 lines
Total = 1169834 
Thats a 169.98% increase in campaign scripting alone. Don't forget, when you click START, all the items above are loaded each & every time into your PC's memory.