Question

Is it possible to listen for an <image> load event in SVG? If yes, how to do this?

Answer 1

Yes it’s possible.

In markup:

<image xlink:href="example.png" width="10" height="10" 
       onload="alert('loaded')"/>

See jsfiddle.

In script:

<script>
  var img = document.createElementNS("http://www.w3.org/2000/svg", "image");
  img.addEventListener('load', function() { alert('loaded'); });
  // or alternatively:
  // img.onload = function() { alert('loaded'); }
  img.width.baseVal.value = 100;
  img.height.baseVal.value = 100;
  img.href.baseVal = "example.png";
</script>

See jsfiddle.