Tie loose load occupying ship's floor (8)
I believe the answer is:
deadlock
'tie' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'loose load occupying ship's floor' is the wordplay.
'loose' indicates anagramming the letters (letters are loosened from their original positions).
'occupying' means one lot of letters goes inside another (inserted letters occupy or enter the word).
'ship's floor' becomes 'deck' (I've seen this before).
'load' with letters rearranged gives 'adlo'.
'adlo' placed inside 'deck' is 'DEADLOCK'.
(Other definitions for deadlock that I've seen before include "Log jam" , "Standstill" , "Situation from which no progress can be made" , "Something opened by a key - stalemate" , "Stalemate - it requires a key to open" .)