Did you mean "not loaded too heavily"? Saturation occurs when secondary output voltage is too high, and output voltage increases with CT burden.
(Note to OP: the load on a CT is called a "burden" and not a "load" just to distinguish it from the way we think about power transformers.)
My impression is that as the resistance across the secondary is increased, the voltage rises. If it rises high enough, the current in the secondary will decrease and allow the core to saturate. I was referring to that when I said not
loaded too lightly. In your terms, a CT requires the burden resistance to below a maximum value to work properly.
Short circuiting the secondary would be fine as long as you were still able to measure the secondary current accurately. But that would be a lower burden and higher "load" right?
I agree that the terminology has the potential to be confusing, specifically increased burden would be higher or lower resistance??
It think that we agree on what is happening, but are describing it in different ways.
To be totally unambiguous, one could just refer to resistance and have the meaning clear to everyone. (maybe)