Probably the easiest way to create a spatialReference object is to pull it from another item, such as a map or layer, as you have done in your example, but you can also create one from a .prj file, the name, or factory code and you don't need to use loadFromString. From the documentation:
sr = arcpy.SpatialReference("Hawaii Albers Equal Area Conic")
You would only need loadFromString if you only had the WKT string.