You load as part of any attack with a crossbow. You can draw the ammunition as part of the attack, so loading it is implied to be part of the attack as well. "Loaded" in this case means only that you have ammunition available for the attack. Per the official errata, "loading a one-handed
weapon requires a free hand."
This means that, post-errata, using rules-as-written (RAW), you cannot indefinitely fire two hand crossbows in the same turn. If you have a single attack, you can fire once with your action and once with the second crossbow as your bonus action with Crossbow Expert on the first turn of combat if they start loaded. However, you can't keep dual-wielding because you won't be able to reload with both hands full.
If you stow the second crossbow on the first turn with your free object interaction, you can fire the main crossbow twice on the second turn, since Crossbow Expert does not say the bonus hand crossbow needs to be different than the one-handed weapon that triggers its bonus attack. You may need to load it before the bonus attack using your object interaction, depending on your GM's interpretation of the feat. You can do this on each subsequent turn to fire a single hand crossbow twice per turn (or more than that, if you have Extra Attack).
You didn't request a rules-as-written answer, so I'll note that there is nothing game-breaking about allowing dual-wielding hand crossbows using Crossbow Expert.
Because of the way crossbows work, I think your GM would be perfectly justified in waiving the errata rule in this case but requiring you to get a customized crossbow and ammo belt to allow you to load it one-handed. That would be part of your house rules, though.
You can attack three times.
Your first ambiguity isn't really ambiguous at all. The distinction between an Attack action and an attack is pretty clear. Heck, both of the quotes in your question make that distinction.
For reference, the Attack action is defined as:
The most common action to take in combat is the Attack
action, whether you are swinging a sword, firing an
arrow from a bow, or brawling with your fists.
With this action, you make one melee or ranged
attack. See the “Making an Attack” section for the rules
that govern attacks.
Certain features, such as the Extra Attack feature
of the fighter, allow you to make more than one attack
with this action.
Just like the quotes in your question, it refers to the Attack action and an attack as two entirely separate things. So "you can use a bonus action to attack" means that you can use a bonus action to make one attack, not to take the Attack action.
Your second ambiguity is ambiguous; it could mean that each attack with a one-handed weapon allows you to use a bonus action to attack or that the Attack action as a whole does. Fortunately, it doesn't really matter, because:
You can take only one bonus action on your turn, so
you must choose which bonus action to use when you
have more than one available.
So even if every attack you make with a one-handed weapon allows you to make an attack as a bonus action, you can still only take one bonus action and make one attack.
To address your comment, we have the preceding text from the definition of bonus actions:
You can take a bonus
action only when a special ability, spell, or other feature
of the game states that you can do something as a bonus
action. You otherwise don’t have a bonus action to take.
You don't have a bonus action that Crossbow Expert allows you to make attacks with. Crossbow Expert gives you a bonus action consisting of a single attack. Even if it gives you that bonus action twice, (or up to 4 times for high level Fighters), you can still only take it once.
Best Answer
Ready action says:
A single target loading a crossbow is an easily perceivable circumstance. I would happily rule that you can do this. For a spread out group of targets I would require a perception check to see whether you spot the loading enemy before they get their shot off, but that is just personal choice.
Crossbow expert
Loading
This doesn't mean you don't need to load the crossbow (it still needs a bolt to fire), only that someone with the feat has become practiced enough that they can load and still get an extra shot off (if they have an extra attack). So we've still got loading the crossbow as a perceivable circumstance as our trigger.
I would rule that a character who already has their weapon trained on the enemy (they've readied their action) can still spot the action and get their shot off. Again this would be harder with a larger group but the given situation is a single target, I wouldn't make a player roll to see if they can release an arrow quicker than the enemy can load, aim and fire their crossbow.
As a DM my thoughts would be: the player has already given up attacking on their round in favour of negotiation - don't punish your players for not jumping straight into combat. This is how murder hobos are born.