By templates, I'm assuming you mean profiles.
You select the name of the profile you want from the drop down box and then click the load button; just selecting on the drop down does not load the profile. There is a good FAQ you can read
here.One thing that folks sometimes overlook is the master profile. The best way to think of the master profile is that it is a profile that consists of profiles. So if you use the same set of profiles for item details, marketing tools, and shipping together on listing after listing, you can make a master profile for the set. Once you've done that, then you can just select the master and click load one time and the other profiles will all be loaded automatically. This is also explained in the FAQ link I gave you earlier.
Hope this helps.