In the documentation says:

$('.result').load('ajax/test.html #container');

When this method executes, the content of ajax/test.html is loaded, but then jQuery parses this returned document to find the element with an ID of container. The inner content of this element is inserted into the element with a class of result, and the rest of the loaded document is discarded.

But this is not true, as of v1.4.1, load takes the target selector content INCLUDING the container itself, not just the inner content as the documentation says. Or maybe it is just my jquery file :)