According to Calvin, how can God be loving if he created people to go to hell? I struggle with John Calvin writing that God created people to go to the lake of fire (Institues, Volume 3, Chapter 21, Section 5). How could a loving, merciful, and gracious God create people so that they will burn forever in the lake of fire? It may be a sovereign act but I fail to see the love. I can understand punishment following the crime, but to create with the intention of suffering before the crime is difficult to comprehend.
I found a compilation of John Calvin quotes on the topic of God's love. Here is one that struck me as relevant to your question:


  Sermon #28, Deut. 4.36-38, p. 167, this quote was compiled by Andrew
  Myers.
  
  It is true that Saint John says generally, that [God] loved the world.
  And why? For Jesus Christ offers Himself generally to all men without
  exception to be their redeemer…  
  
  Thus we see three degrees of the love that God has showed us in our
  Lord Jesus Christ.  The first is in respect of the redemption that was
  purchased in the person of Him that gave Himself to death for us, and
  became accursed to reconcile us to God his Father.  That is the first
  degree of love, which extends to all men, inasmuch as Jesus Christ
  reaches out his arms to call and allure all men both great and small,
  and to win them to Him.  
  
  But there is a special love for those to whom the gospel is preached:
  which is that God testifies unto them that He will make them partakers
  of the benefit that was purchased for them by the death and passion of
  his Son.  And forasmuch as we be of that number, therefore we are
  double bound already to our God: here are two bonds which hold us as
  it were strait tied unto Him.  
  
  Now let us come to the third bond, which depends upon the third love
  that God shows us: which is that He not only causes the gospel to be
  preached unto us, but also makes us to feel the power thereof, so as
  we know Him to be our Father and Savior, not doubting but that our
  sins are forgiven us for our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, who brings us
  the gift of the Holy Ghost, to reform us after his own image.


The other quotes are here:
https://www.monergism.com/john-calvin-god%E2%80%99s-love

The preceding quote shows 

(1) that God loves all people with a first token because Jesus' offer of his life was sufficient to save all mankind,

(2) that God loved a subset of all people by preaching the gospel to them (though none were worthy to hear Him deliver His counsel), a second, more powerful token of his love,

(3) that God loved a subset of those who heard the gospel and made that message powerfully persuasive, converting them to truth and salvation, and ultimately translating them to Heaven.

Thus God loves even those who end up in Hell, and Christ was willing to suffer even for many who wasted His gift of His precious blood, pouring it into the sewer.