I am not sure if the ionic creator provides some extra features to the templates apart from what you can download using the IONIC CLI.
If you are not able to download the project the way you described, try the following
-$ ionic start myNewProject
For the above command you get a response like below
What starter would you like to use: (Use arrow keys)
❯ tabs ............... ionic-angular A starting project with a simple tabbed int
erface
blank .............. ionic-angular A blank starter project
sidemenu ........... ionic-angular A starting project with a side menu with na
vigation in the content area
super .............. ionic-angular A starting project complete with pre-built
pages, providers and best practices for Ionic development.
conference ......... ionic-angular A project that demonstrates a realworld app
lication
tutorial ........... ionic-angular A tutorial based project that goes along wi
th the Ionic documentation
aws ................ ionic-angular AWS Mobile Hub Starter
You can choose a template and get started.