diff --git a/CHANGES.md b/CHANGES.md
index 5fbf53dd..180a5324 100644
--- a/CHANGES.md
+++ b/CHANGES.md
@@ -3,6 +3,8 @@
 
 ## Unreleased
 
+- datasets: Fix dataset loader
+
 
 ## 2024/03/07 v0.0.6
 
diff --git a/cratedb_toolkit/datasets/model.py b/cratedb_toolkit/datasets/model.py
index 4004ebed..e0ef6f2d 100644
--- a/cratedb_toolkit/datasets/model.py
+++ b/cratedb_toolkit/datasets/model.py
@@ -103,10 +103,12 @@ def load(
         cardinality = self.db.count_records(self.table, errors="ignore")
         has_data = cardinality > 0
 
-        if not has_data and not if_exists == "noop":
-            if self.init_sql is None:
-                raise ValueError("SQL for loading data is missing")
-            self.run_sql(self.init_sql)
+        if if_exists == "noop" and has_data:
+            return
+
+        if self.init_sql is None:
+            raise ValueError("SQL for loading data is missing")
+        self.run_sql(self.init_sql)
 
     def run_sql(self, sql: str):
         for statement in sqlparse.parse(sql):