> require(rgdal)
> dsn="PG:dbname='gis'"

> ogrListLayers(dsn)
 [1] "ccsm_polygons"         "nongp"                 "WrldTZA"
 [4] "nongpritalin"          "ritalinmerge"          "metforminmergev"

> polys = readOGR(dsn="PG:dbname='gis'","ccsm_polygons")
OGR data source with driver: PostgreSQL
Source: "PG:dbname='gis'", layer: "ccsm_polygons"
with 32768 features and 4 fields
Feature type: wkbMultiPolygon with 2 dimensions

> summary(polys)
Object of class SpatialPolygonsDataFrame
Coordinates:
        min      max
x -179.2969 180.7031
y  -90.0000  90.0000
Is projected: NA
proj4string : [NA]
Data attributes:
      area         perimeter       ccsm_polys      ccsm_pol_1
 Min.   :1.000   Min.   :5.000   Min.   :    2   Min.   :    1
 1st Qu.:1.000   1st Qu.:5.000   1st Qu.: 8194   1st Qu.: 8193
 Median :1.000   Median :5.000   Median :16386   Median :16384
 Mean   :1.016   Mean   :5.016   Mean   :16386   Mean   :16384
 3rd Qu.:1.000   3rd Qu.:5.000   3rd Qu.:24577   3rd Qu.:24576
 Max.   :2.000   Max.   :6.000   Max.   :32769   Max.   :32768

> require(RPostgreSQL)
Loading required package: RPostgreSQL
Loading required package: DBI
> m <- dbDriver("PostgreSQL")
> con <- dbConnect(m, dbname="gis")
> q="SELECT ST_AsText(the_geom) AS geom from ccsm_polygons LIMIT 10;"
> rs = dbSendQuery(con,q)
> df = fetch(rs,n=-1)

dbGetSp <- function(dbInfo,query) {
 if(!require('rgdal')|!require(RPostgreSQL))stop('missing rgdal or RPostgreSQL')
  d <- dbInfo
  tmpTbl <- sprintf('tmp_table_%s',round(runif(1)*1e5))
  dsn <- sprintf("PG:dbname='%s' host='%s' port='%s' user='%s' password='%s'",
    d$dbname,d$host,d$port,d$user,d$password
    )
  drv <- dbDriver("PostgreSQL")
  con <- dbConnect(drv, dbname=d$dbname, host=d$host, port=d$port,user=d$user, password=d$password)
  tryCatch({
    sql <- sprintf("CREATE UNLOGGED TABLE %s AS %s",tmpTbl,query)
    res <- dbSendQuery(con,sql)
    nr <- dbGetInfo(res)$rowsAffected
    if(nr<1){
      warning('There is no feature returned.');
      return()
    }
    sql <- sprintf("SELECT f_geometry_column from geometry_columns WHERE f_table_name='%s'",tmpTbl)
    geo <- dbGetQuery(con,sql)
    if(length(geo)>1){
      tname <- sprintf("%s(%s)",tmpTbl,geo$f_geometry_column[1])
    }else{
      tname <- tmpTbl;
    }
    out <- readOGR(dsn,tname)
    return(out)
  },finally={
    sql <- sprintf("DROP TABLE %s",tmpTbl)
    dbSendQuery(con,sql)
    dbClearResult(dbListResults(con)[[1]])
    dbDisconnect(con)
  })
}

d=list(host='localhost', dbname='spatial_db', port='5432', user='myusername', password='mypassword')
spatialObj<-dbGetSp(dbInfo=d,"SELECT * FROM spatial_table")

user  system elapsed
0.001   0.000   0.008

user  system elapsed
0.313   0.021   1.436

RPostGIS <- function(coninfo,query) {
  dsn=paste("PG:dbname='",coninfo$dbname,"' host='",coninfo$host,"' port='",coninfo$port,"' user='",coninfo$user,"' password='",coninfo$password,"'", sep='')
  drv <- dbDriver("PostgreSQL")
  con <- dbConnect(drv, user=coninfo$user, password=coninfo$password, dbname=coninfo$dbname)
  res <- dbSendQuery(con,paste('CREATE TABLE tmp1209341251dva1 AS ',query,sep=''))
  geo <- dbGetQuery(con,"SELECT f_geometry_column from geometry_columns WHERE f_table_name='tmp1209341251dva1'")
  if(length(geo)>1){
    tname=paste("tmp1209341251dva1(",geo$f_geometry_column[1],")")
  }else{
    tname="tmp1209341251dva1";
  }
  out <- tryCatch(readOGR(dsn,tname), finally=dbSendQuery(con,'DROP TABLE tmp1209341251dva1'))
  dbDisconnect(con)
  return(out)
}

> require('rgdal')
> require('RPostgreSQL')
> coninfo=list(host='localhost',dbname='spatial_db',port='5432',user='myusername',password='mypassword')
> spatial_obj<-RPostGIS(coninfo,"SELECT * FROM spatial_table")