The exported image files (spritesheets) are first loaded onto disk, which means downloading them if it's a web-based game. Then they are loaded into memory (RAM) as needed (when they're actually used in the game).
To reduce downloaded file size, you can compress the outputted spritesheets. Construct can do this on export, but I've found much better results with third-party solutions like tinypng. And be sure you're using "de-duplicate" images on export.